


fair scene

by dacmennis



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Anxiety, First Kiss, M/M, getting high a little bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 04:10:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5813548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dacmennis/pseuds/dacmennis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Uh, are you gay, dude?” <br/>"I don't really know, but I like you. I like you a lot more than any girl I’ve ever met.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	fair scene

**Author's Note:**

> I imagined them to be age 17 in this one, a little precanon inspired by my own sheer terror of amusement park rides.

“Dude, no. I told you, I fucking hate rides,” Mac protested.  


“Then what was the point of you coming along?!”   


Mac looked around nervously, trying to will the boardwalk closed with his mind. “I just wanted to hang out with you! I’ve never gotten to do anything fun growing up so far. You and Dee get to go here every year! I just don’t want to ride any rides. They make me nauseous.”   


"Dude, okay, just the Ferris wheel. Please? Just go on it with me one time and I won’t make you do anything else.”   


“Oh, you’re not going to _make_ me do anything I don’t want to do.”   


“Yeah, we’ll see about that. Come on!” And with that, Dennis powerwalked toward his favorite ride on the boardwalk, quickly blending into the crowd in the darkening twilight.   


“God damn it, Dennis,” Mac sighed, begrudgingly catching up to his best friend. Although Mac had successfully weaseled his way in to Dennis and Dee’s summer outing by whining and begging them (and providing his own money from the pot he had sold over the last week), he secretly hoped that he could get Dennis alone on this mini-vacation and just spend some time with him, the two of them having a good time swimming and playing games and stargazing out the back of the Range Rover… _well, maybe that was a bit much to hope for,_ Mac thought, aware that Dennis at least didn’t seem to be interested in getting any closer than huddling together to light a joint on a windy day. Still, when Dee protested Mac’s tagging along, it was Dennis who immediately shut her down and insisted that Mac accompany them to the Shore, and before Dee could say another word, she was buckled in the backseat of the car, angry and seething, while Mac enjoyed the benefits of riding shotgun with the air conditioning blasting in his face and the satisfaction of sending Dee to the background.  


And that’s where they had arrived presently. Mac had caught up with Dennis under the towering red and orange lights of the giant Ferris wheel, his stomach dropping to his feet. He couldn’t let Dennis know that he was afraid of heights, that’d make him look like a pansy-ass baby for sure. The heady, warm air of the midsummer night felt thick and strangling. Mac panted and felt his heart jump at the thought of falling out of the ride’s umbrella-topped seats and tumbling hundreds, maybe even thousands of feet to land with a splat on the pavement below, organs liquefied and bones immediately incinerating to dust. _I wouldn’t even be able to have an open casket,_ Mac thought horrified, frozen in place in line. _Dad won’t even be able to come because he’s still in prison! I haven’t even gotten laid yet!_    


The hard snap of Dennis’s fingers an inch away from his face jolted Mac out of his daydream. “I said, do you have your own tickets left? I have one for each of us if you don’t.”   


“Uhhh…” Mac swallowed hard. “Yeah dude, I have one left.” He produced a wrinkled yellow paper ticket from the pocket of his shorts stamped Admit One.   


“Are you fucking scared?” Dennis smirked, stepping up the rickety metal ramp a few paces as the line moved forward.  


 “No dude, I already told you that rides make me feel sick,” Mac insisted, though his wildly thumping heart and prickly skin suggested otherwise. He watched as the Ferris wheel climbed high into the night sky, practically touching the low-hanging crescent moon from his view on the ground. Dennis pressed his body against the wooden railings of the ramp and sighed. “God damn, I hate waiting. I should have had my dad fork over the cash for the passes that would skip us straight to the front of the line.”  


By the looks of the few people ahead of them, they wouldn’t be waiting much longer. Mac tried to quiet his nerves by breathing in slowly through his nose and out through his mouth, but Dennis had taken to sizing him up again and calming himself was noticeable.   


"What’s the big deal, man? Are you afraid of heights or something? It’s not that high up,” Dennis offered. “Just go on it one time and you won’t be afraid anymore.”   


Mac shook his head at Dennis’s lack of understanding. “It’s not that, dude, I already fucking told you that rides make me sick!”   


“Too bad, it’s our turn.”   


Unable to chicken out now, Dennis and Mac handed their tickets over to the skinny, greasy ride operator and stepped into the little booth-like seating of the Ferris wheel, latching the door closed. The umbrella-style carriage was shaped in a circular fashion with a pole running down the middle of the enclosure. Mac and Dennis sat opposite of each other, Mac’s hands jammed in his pockets, willing himself not to freak out like he always had before when he attempted to overcome his fear of amusement park rides.   


“Hey, check me out,” Dennis said and stood up, pretending to pole dance on the enclosure’s pole, swinging the carriage from side to side.  


“Quit!” Mac barked and the Ferris wheel roared to life. Mac cemented himself into place with his hands gripping the booth seat, color draining from his face as the ride escalated higher and higher into the night sky.   


“Chill out, dude, this is as high as it gets,” Dennis reminded him as the Ferris wheel peaked over the obsidian water of the boardwalk, neon lights glinting beautifully off of the surface. Mansions across the pier glowed warmly with light and the excitement of the fair down below added to the carefree atmosphere.   


Mac breathed out through his mouth and tried to convince himself that it wasn’t so bad. _After all,_ he thought, _I have Dennis all to myself and sitting here with him is the only reason I wanted to go in the first place…_  


 Suddenly, the Ferris wheel jerked to a stop, Mac and Dennis’s carriage stuck exactly at twelve o’clock high above the boardwalk, swaying eerily in the breeze of the night.  “What the fuck just happened?!” Mac screamed, unable to control the fear inside him. A wave of sickness washed over him as he struggled to stop feeling like he was trapped, trapped and falling both at the same time, twinkly stars clouding his vision as his hands began shaking and a nauseating itching crawled up his back.  


 “Relax, dude, the ride just got stuck,” Dennis was the epitome of cool across from his panicking friend, arms and legs stretched out, sunglasses perched atop his head. He scooted closer to Mac, the carriage shifting under his weight and causing Mac further distress.  


 “Don’t, dude!! Oh my god, this is fucking nuts dude, I feel like I’m going to puke. And I have to pee! I have to pee so bad and we’re stuck…” Mac trailed off and tried to quell his shaking by tilting his head back and focusing on the flat line of the horizon, barely perceptible in the far West of the summer sky.   


“Here,” Dennis pulled something from the pocket of his shirt. “This ought to calm you down, dude.” Dennis stuck one end of a joint into his mouth and cupped his hand to light it, inhaling deeply and blowing the smoke out sensuously, dissipating into the dimly-lit sky.  Mac shakily took the joint and inhaled, focusing his unsettling energy into the high that was about to wash over him, grateful that his friend had remembered to pack an emergency stash, though Mac didn’t exactly picture them smoking under such circumstances. He inhaled again and passed the joint back to Dennis, who had scooted even closer without Mac realizing it, his arm flung across the back of Mac’s seat.   


The Ferris wheel had been stuck for about ten minutes when Mac dared to take a peek to the ground below. Through his hazy high, he made out the shape of the ride’s operator conversing and gesturing with two other greasy-looking men in gray uniforms and a large red toolbox planted at their feet. The power to the Ferris wheel flickered, and with an electric hum, the lights went out and Mac looked over at Dennis with his huge brown eyes, terrified.  


 “It’s okay, dude, they have to turn off the power to fix the ride,” Dennis’s voice was low and soothing, and Mac watched as Dennis finished off the joint, flicking it out of the carriage in a quick snap, shifting surreptitiously in his seat another inch toward Mac. His arm still sat curled around Mac’s back, and Dennis placed his hand on Mac’s right shoulder and pulled his friend close. Mac rested his head of Dennis’s shoulder, exhausted from freaking out about being on an amusement park ride and suspended in the night sky, but also coming in to the comfortable numbness of his high. And why didn’t Dennis seem to mind that Mac was clinging to him now? Mac had pulled Dennis into a weird sideways hug and Dennis sat there calmly with his arms sheltering Mac from feeling too overwhelmed to move. Dennis smelled really good, Mac noticed, like sandalwood and campfire. It wasn’t really a surprise because Dennis was always groomed impeccably, worshipping himself in the mirror for hours at a time while Dee tried her best to kick the bathroom door open.  


The two of them sat there in the dark for what seemed like days, though Mac gathered his thoughts into focus enough to realize that it must’ve only been a few minutes. He sat slumped against Dennis’s chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart, imbibing the scent of his friend’s cologne and the cooling saltwater of the pier, breathing in and out to stay calm…and feeling a tickling at the back of his neck…was Dennis playing with his hair?   


Mac summoned enough courage to risk rocking the carriage of the Ferris wheel and looked up at Dennis, his face dark against the now-blackened sky, the thin crescent moon serving as the only source of light from behind his slightly bowed head, eyes closed.  


“Why are you playing with my hair, dude?”  


 “Is that a problem?” Dennis smiled easily, eyebrows raised. “Why are you hugging me? It’s because you’re scared, and I don’t care if you are. I’ll hold onto you until we get going again, I’ll do what I can to calm you down. Plus, I’m kinda tired and it’s nice to just sit here with you and chill.”  


 Mac twisted around in his seat and laid on his back now, head in Dennis’s lap, willing himself to stare up at the myriad of stars that could be seen somewhat clearly despite the light pollution. “Den?”  


 “Yeah?”   


“Uh, are you gay, dude?”   


"I don't really know, but I like you. I like you a lot more than any girl I’ve ever met.”   


“Why?”   


Dennis stared down at Mac, brushing his hair out of his face and leaving his hand pressed against the barely-there shadow of facial hair roughness. “I don’t know, but you know what? If you didn’t beg to come along on our trip, I was going to make you come anyway.”   


_“Make_ me?” Mac felt like he’d heard himself repeat this phrase a lot when Dennis was around.   


Dennis leaned down and kissed Mac full and hungrily in the moonlight, cradling his head and slipping his tongue shyly and circumspect into Mac's warm mouth. Still laying on his back, Mac no longer felt like he was falling, but melting instead, his heart pouring blood into a messy puddle at their feet. Dennis pulled Mac up against him and they kissed sleepily and deeply until they were both exhausted and seemed to have forgotten that they were stuck on a ride. Mac had never kissed anyone, and the incredible feeling of euphoric lust swept over him, his entire insides humming with ultrasonic pleasure, a vibration that had never been stirred up inside of him before. Dennis had already had sex with lots of girls, but that’s all it was. Mac was the first person he had ever wanted to comfort, to be good enough for (not that he had to worry about being enough for someone as down and out as Mac).   


It was a good half hour later before the Ferris wheel’s fiery light reignited and slowly cranked to life, beckoning a cheer from the crowd that had amassed below. Mac sleepily looked up at Dennis’s serene face in the dim glow, disappointed that their alone time was coming to an end.   


"Don’t worry,” Dennis sensed Mac’s displeasure and sought to sate him again. “We’ll drive out somewhere far away from everyone and it’ll just be you and me.”   


"What about Sweet Dee?” Mac wondered.  


 “She can find her own way home.”  



End file.
